This invention relates in general to water treatment devices, and in particular to a hydrodynamic separator for removing pollutants from storm water runoff.
Storm water runoff from the roofs of buildings, bridges, highways, parking lots, and other urban areas often contains pollutants such as heavy metals, oil, grease, and a variety of suspended solids including sediment, sand, gravel, and the like. When such pollutants enter a receiving body of water such as a river, stream, lake, or pond, numerous adverse environmental effects are likely. Thus, it is desirable to remove as many of these pollutants as possible before the pollutants enter a receiving body of water.
While various systems for treating runoff are known, these devices are often inappropriately sized, complex, expensive, difficult to configure and maintain, experience high water head loss, require power, and/or may not adequately remove both solid and floatable pollutants prior to discharging into a receiving body of water. Thus, there is a need for a space saving, efficient, easy to manufacture storm water treatment device that may be easily installed and maintained, and that requires little or no electrical power for its operation.